


Soldier Eyes

by DawnMalfoy



Series: Yuri on Ice!!! Stories [5]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Episode Related, Eyes, Falling In Love, Feelings, First Meetings, Fluff, Friendship, Friendship/Love, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Time Passing, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, becoming friends, idolisation, meetings, otabek is a softy, yurio is too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 16:18:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8807611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnMalfoy/pseuds/DawnMalfoy
Summary: Otabek wasn't lying when he said Yuri Plisetsky had soldier eyes. It's just that having soldier's eyes entails a lot more than people think when they first hear the phrase





	

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual this is unedited.  
> I promise I'll sit down and edit my YOI fics someday, but today is not that day 
> 
> PSA to everyone rereading. I've edited this story due to being notified that most Kazakh people are able to speak Russian. It doesn't change the story much but I just wanted to tell you all. This fic is also mostly edited now...
> 
> p.s the errors in their initial dialogue with grammar and word choice are intentional, because they were young and probably didn't speak very much english yet.

 

Otabek Altin is not someone who makes being foolish a part of his routine. He can’t afford to. Not when his country and his family are footing exorbitant bills to send him to the behemoth of a country that is Russia so he can train in a sport that gives him very few years of being an effective competitor. He doesn’t put a toe pick out of line. Doesn’t cry when he misses his mother’s pilaf, nor when he misses the familiar sights and smells of Almaty. Otabek knows that he isn’t anywhere near the league of the other children training at Yakov Feltsman’s summer training camp. It’s why he’s in the the novice class and why he’s forced to spend hours practicing spins and jumps long after the other kids have gone home.

 

Sometimes the other kids on the camp ask him if he’d like to come sightseeing with them. Otabek desperately wants to say yes. St Petersburg is entirely different from anywhere he’s ever been before. It’s filled with buildings with unusually onion shaped bulbs on top of them and there’s so many new and different colours on the buildings. He wants to run off with the other kids and explore all the new sights and smells of Russia, but his free leg is still sloppy and he’s struggling to land a triple salchow let alone all of the quads that Yakov has told him to learn. 

 

So he spends the entirety of the summer camp repeating the same jumps, spins and step sequences until there is more bruised skin than there is unbruised. It’s lonely for the first few days. Everyone else is too scared of the professional skaters who come to visit after their classes have finished for the day. He’s heard them whispering about their fear of Victor Nikiforov, but Otabek has found that so long as he’s careful to be quiet on the second, smaller rink where the novices train then none of the senior athletes take notice of him. 

 

After the first few days though, a shy blonde boy who speaks rapid fire Russian in a tone that suggests Otabek should be pleased he only manages to hear a few of the words properly appears to train with him. Otabek is certain that he is a few years older than the tiny Russian boy, but the determination in every part of his body seems to fill the age gap. 

 

“Get off the ice. I am better. I need improve” The words are in English, but his time with the other skaters on the camp has meant that Otabek’s English has improved to a level where he can understand it. 

 

“I need skate time too.” It’s not great English, but he’s too shy to explain that he’d be far more comfortable speaking in Russian. 

 

They begrudgingly split the ice and skate separately. If Otabek sneaks more than a few glances at the Russian boy’s skating, it’s only to see if there’s anything he can learn from his technique.

 

* * *

 

It takes until the very last week of the camp for them to speak again. They’ve continued to train together, skating silently late into the night and Otabek is just a little obsessed with the younger boy. It might be weird to think that a ten year old is stunning, but there was no way that Otabek could deny his admiration of the boy’s skating.  Determination seeps out of his every motion and Otabek desperately wants to talk to him, because there’s an aching familiarity in it.

 

They haven’t spoken to each other since the night Yuri had blazed his way onto the spare rink, but Otabek has heard whispers from the more experienced skaters about the ten year old. Apparently he’d moved from  Moscow to St Petersburg on Yakov’s request. There were murmurs about an aging grandfather and absent parents, but Otabek’s never heard anything much because they always walk by so quickly that he misses the end of the sentences. 

 

It’s the last week of the training camp and there’s only two days until Otabek will have to fly to the US to start his new training program. He thinks that America might be nice, with their apparently liberal thoughts and food portions so large that they are impossible to finish. He’s finally landing all of the jumps Yakov had taught him, and his spins are no longer lacking control. Practice is still required to work on the nuances of the techniques, but they’re good enough for a thirteen year old. Now, the extra practice after class is all for the sake of seeing Yuri skating. 

 

He doesn’t ever expect that the younger boy will come to his half of the rink to talk to him. 

 

“You. Otabek.” Yuuri’s accent seems to triple when he speaks English and Otabek thinks it’s a little cute how he sticks his bottom lip out, so Otabek keeps quiet about his Russian speaking abilities. He makes a noise of acknowledgement as he brings himself to a stop. “Leaving in two days.” it’s quiet. Otabek looks down at the boy’s hands, where they are fiddling with a training shirt so worn that it is almost see through. 

 

“I… I miss you, when you go.” For the first time, Otabek looks into the younger skater’s eyes and is struck as though by lightning. 

 

Yuuri has a soldier’s eyes. 

 

He wants to say something about it. Opens his mouth, then closes it again. 

 

“I’ll miss you too Yuri. Next time we meet. Let’s skate our best.” He replies in Russian just to watch those soldier’s eyes go wide. They go back to training after that and two days later, Otabek leaves for America.

 

* * *

 

 

He goes a lot of places after Russia. It’s been years since he’s had a stable home, moving from one country to the next in search of new training that would help him find all the flaws his old trainers became immune to. Late at night sometimes, he thinks of his parents back in Almaty and of all his friends who he used to skate with. He gets homesick, but he doesn’t cry. He’s here skating because he worked hard for it. His friends, who all had put in the same passion were unfortunate and weren’t blessed with this opportunity. 

 

So it is his job to suck it up and keep fighting to be the best. For his family who have made so many sacrifices to help pay for him to be able to train under so many amazing coaches. He has to fight all of the impulses in his body that scream that he isn’t good enough. Push them down and keep them prisoner so that he can prove that the sacrifices of all the people around him were not in vain. And, besides the people he knows and cares about, there is the hopes of his nation riding on his shoulders. His nickname is ‘The Hero of Kazakhstan’ and he won’t let his people down. 

 

Some days though, the responsibility feels so heavy that he can’t to crumple under it all. His chest aches with all of the nerves that build up when he thinks of his still bad free leg and of how he still pulls his weight off the ice using his upper body rather than his core. On those days it feels as though he can hear every single one of his past coaches critiques running through his head. It makes him want to scream in frustration, but instead he channels the frustration into a late night practice that reminds him of long hours spent in a rink with a beautiful Russian boy. 

 

People call him Russia’s fairy, but in Otabek’s heart Yuri Plisetsky is the Soldier of Russia. Fighting his way forward with careful planning and sheer force. 

 

* * *

 

It takes five years for them to meet again. 

 

Otabek’s home rink has finally returned to being in Almaty, because his skills have improved to the level where his coach is willing to travel for him. It’s nice to be back in Kazakhstan. He’s not quite sure it feels like home anymore, but it’s the closest he’s gotten to it ever since he stepped onto the plane bound for Russia. At the very least, the sights, smells and sounds are all somewhat more familiar than those of the other places that he has trained in. It’s nice to be able to get his favourite snack foods whenever the idea takes his fancy and he loves being able to communicate with the people around him without having to translate it first (the exclusion to this being his coach, but he supposes that’s okay). 

 

He managed to secure a bronze in the World’s last year to his own surprise. It had solidified the title of Kazakhstan's hero. He likes the nickname a lot, but it compounds the pressure on him. It pushes him to train harder, but it also makes him much more nervous about competing to a standard which will live up to the expectations which have built up after the World Championships. He manages to win Silver at the American Cup and he succeeds in winning a gold in the NHK Cup. 

 

When he hears that Yuri has made it to the Grand Prix finals he gets excited. He hadn’t competed against Yuri for a very long time and even when he had, he had most definitely not been at a level that could really even be considered as challenging Yuri. Now though, he is most definitely at a level where Yuri should consider him as being a worthy competitor. 

 

The Hero of Kazakhstan versus the Soldier of Russia. 

 

It’s harder to get Yuri alone than he anticipated. There’s this group of fans who have declared themselves to be Yuuri’s angels that seems more like a group of hell hounds with the way that they stalk the poor boy. Otabek would like to say that it’s coincidence that he happens to be motoring along the road that Yuri comes to hide in, it really isn’t. He’d been trying to meet up with the younger boy for days, but he never seemed to notice him and when he did, he always ran the other way. 

 

There isn’t many options left for Yuuri besides getting on the motorcycle, because the crazy fangirls have managed to work out where he is based off of his shocked gasp. Otabek feels guilty for thinking that a fifteen year old looks cute while he’s tilting his head to the side trying to decide whether or not to get onto a motorbike, but he consoles himself by remembering that the age gap is only technically two years and a few months. Yuri doesn’t seem to want to put his hands too close to him, but the moment the motorbike speeds up the boy grabs his waist for dear life and Otabek feels as though he is truly a hero, helping his soldier from a situation of distress. 

 

He’s not sure how then end up on a balcony together, but the sunset is pretty and Yuri doesn’t seem to mind the location and Otabek likes that he can see out over some of the skyline. 

 

“So why did you drag me here, weirdo?” Yuri asks in that familiar aggressive way that shakes Otabek’s calm world in a somewhat enjoyable way.

 

“We actually trained together five years ago. At Yakov’s summer camp.” Otabek rarely talks very much, so he gets shy about it, blushing a little and turning his face away. He’d already used most of his confidence getting Yuri to get onto his motorbike.

 

“Really? I don’t remember that.” Yuri almost sounds sad that he’s forgotten about their time together and Otabek’s heart pounds in his chest at the thought that maybe Yuri would like to remember him. 

 

He starts explaining his placement in the novice classes but before he knows it his thoughts spill from his mouth. 

 

“Yuri Plisetsky had the unforgettable eyes of a soldier.” 

 

Otabek still remembers them as well has he had in the seconds after he’d witnessed it. Yuri Plisetsky’s eyes are unforgettable. 

 

“A soldier?” Yuri sounds breathless and Otabek looks over to him. Initially his eyes are caught by the way that the younger boy’s blonde hair flutters in the breeze. Just like his eyes, Yuri’s hair is unique. He finds himself wanting to run his fingers through it, just to see if it is as soft as it looks. It wouldn’t be appropriate though. They’re not friends. Barely even acquaintances when you consider that Yuri has forgotten their past. 

 

“Me?” 

 

Inevitably, Otabek ends up staring at Yuri’s eyes. 

 

They’re still definitely the eyes of a soldier. 

 

There’s a hardened glint of determination there that reminds him of the looks he saw in the mirror on competition days. It’s the look of a person going to battle. A look of unshakeable belief that you are right and that you will be victorious. It’s a look that all soldiers have when they enter any form of challenge, because the only way for a soldier to enter battle is to enter it with complete belief that they are the righteous. That they will emerge victorious. 

 

The thing is though, that soldier’s eyes carry so, so much more than determination. 

 

Yuri’s eyes, like so many other soldiers who have known the traumas of war carrying a disarming vulnerability. He’s so determined, but terrified of losing. It’s a vulnerability that exists once a soldier learns the pain of loss. It’s not a large presence in the boy’s gaze, but it’s a feeling that Otabek has been carrying for so long that he can instantly detect it in other people. He supposes that Yuri has lost a lot more than him. His grandfather is not great at technology (if Yuuri’s mutterings in Russia when he checked his phone earlier are any indication) so unlike Otabek moving meant losing most of his contact with the one person in the world he was sure cared for him. 

 

There’s the trauma in the boy’s eyes as well. 

 

No soldier who's been through a battle ever leaves without some form of scar. Otabek isn’t sure what has scarred Yuri, but he wants to know. He wants to understand what has made Yuri so nervous about people who wanted to approach him. Wanted to know why he seemed to be so desperate for people’s approval, despite his apparent confidence. 

 

 “I had just moved my homerink from Moscow to St. Petersburg. I was desperate” Oh. They’re so much more similar than Otabek had anticipated. He’d always had an inkling that they may have some similarities after their time on camp, but they’re almost eerily similar.  Honestly he’d just wanted to see the boy again and refresh the image of those haunting eyes. Yuri is loud while Otabek is quiet. Is rough where Otabek is soft. Is brash and headstrong where Otabek is cautious and calculating. 

 

“I’d decided that I wouldn’t complain until I was good enough.” he says wistfully and Otabek is struck by how beautiful Yuri’s side profile looks silhouetted by the light of the setting sun. 

 

“After that camp, I moved around to train, from Russia, to the US and then to Canada. I only managed to return home to my home rink in Almaty last year” He isn’t sure why it’s so easy to talk to a standoffish fifteen year old, but suddenly Otabek wants to spill all his secrets. 

 

“Now, more than ever, I want to win the championship for Kazakhstan” 

 

“Otabek, why did you talk to me?” 

 

It’s a good question. He doesn’t really know the answer either. He could have seen Yuri’s eyes again without having to converse with the boy at all. He isn’t sure what drew him into trying to converse with him and there isn’t really much time to question the butterflies flitting in the bottom of his belly now that he can feel Yuri’s eyes on him. 

 

“I’m a rival aren’t I?” 

 

_ Not really.  _ Otabek’s mind supplies.  _ I’ve always thought of you as my ally. _

 

His thoughts spill out before he can filter them but he’s beginning to find that he enjoys how honest he can be with Yuri. 

 

“I’ve always thought we were alike. That’s all.” he says. The lack of sugar coating makes the words feel bitter on his tongue, but Yuri looks rather impressed with how straight forward he’s being. It makes his chest puff out a little with new found confidence and he keeps talking. “So, are you going to become friends with me or not?” 

 

They shake hands and the butterflies that had been flitting at the bottom of Otabek’s belly take flight at the contact, even though his fingerless gloves mean that the only skin to skin contact is the brushing of his fingertips against Yuri’s cold skin. Most people would find the chill of Yuri’s skin uninviting, even perhaps a little repulsive. Otabek though, finds himself craving their cool touch along the shaved parts of his hair or spread over his chest where his heart is. Perhaps it’s because it reminds him of the ice.

 

* * *

 

 

Yuri gets on his motorcycle willingly this time and Otabek can swear that he can feel the places where Yuuri’s arms are holding his waist burning from Yuuri’s icy touch even through all the layers of leather that he’s wearing. He isn’t sure what it means when warmth floods to his cheeks as Yuri points out that some of the foam from his milky tea has left a trail on his upper lip, only to reach across and wipe it off using his own napkin.

 

Sitting in the tea house with Yuri Plisetsky he’s about as uncertain about what their future will hold as he was when he left the summer camp in Russia, but Yuri’s soldier eyes have changed again, filling slowly with the warmth and fondness that comes with finding companionship. It’s presence makes Otabek’s heart warm and makes his chest tighten in a way that he’d only ever associated with stepping onto the ice.

 

So Otabek lets Yuri ruffle his undercut out of it’s styled perfection and lets him kick him under the table while he makes loud remarks about how he’s going to turn a certain Japanese piggy into borscht tomorrow, just so he can enjoy more of the new feeling. 

 

Yuri’s face lights up as he describes how he will beat everyone tomorrow while reassuring him that he’ll definitely manage to get a score close to his  and Otabek thinks that maybe a soldier’s eye and a hero’s heart might have some room for a little bit of love. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to come scream and cry with me when episode 11 drops, or just follow my life to see what fanfics I'm writing and what random things I'm doing with my life (like baking lots of melon pan and following a lot of Korean boys) then feel free to follow me on twitter @DawnMalfoy


End file.
